Hockey: Rockford IceHogs win with nearly perfect shootout

ROCKFORD — Ted Dent thought it was time to work on shootouts at practice.

“We hadn’t had one in a while,” the Rockford IceHogs head coach theorized. “I thought we’d be due for one soon.”

Good timing. And good results.

Rockford was near-perfect in a four-round shootout Saturday night, enabling it to run its unbeaten streak to five with a 5-4 shootout victory over the Oklahoma City Barons.

“The guys did a good job with it,” said Dent, whose 15-11-2-0 team last saw a shootout in the season’s ninth game on Oct. 26.

Joakim Nordstrom and Brandon Pirri scored in the first two rounds. Terry Broadhurst’s tally at the start of the fourth round ended the game. Goalie Mac Carruth stopped all three Baron shooters he faced.

“We’ve got some highly skilled forwards for sure,” said forward Mark McNeill, who had a goal and assist. “They know what to do coming down one-on-one on the goalie. They brought all the right moves tonight.”

McNeill helped the power play perform nearly as well as the team handled the shootout. Three of the ’Hogs’ regulation scores came via the man-advantage.

“It’s something we’ve really been working on in practice,” McNeill said. “We’re seeing improvement game by game. Tonight it was clicking, and we had some success.”

Dent agreed.

“The power play was good,” he said. “I thought we moved the puck well. We gave up a point letting in that goal with two-and-a-half minutes left. But we still got our two (standings) points, and that was good.”

After all seven goals in Friday’s 4-3 Rockford victory were even strength, half of Saturday’s in regulation came on man-advantages.

The Barons struck first and last in the first, beating goalie Carruth at 1:41 (Will Acton) and 19:23 (Roman Horak). In between, Philippe Lefebvre got his second goal of the season unassisted (6:57) and Nordstrom collected his seventh on a power play at 10:51.

Power-play successes were traded in the second. McNeill got his team-high ninth goal late in a 5-on-3 situation to open the period at 1:14; ex-’Hog Derek Nesbitt notched his seventh goal of the season at 11:25 to make it 3-3.

Overtime was set up when Oklahoma City’s Martin Marincin struck at 17:39 of the third on a long, straight-on blast through traffic. Terry Broadhurst’s seventh goal of the season on a power play gave Rockford (15-11-2-0) a 4-3 edge 4:38 into the period.

The ’Hogs now are on a 4-0-1-0 roll.

“We have a real positive locker room,” McNeill said. “Everyone is feeling really good. We have a three-in-three this weekend (with a game today at Iowa), and these points are crucial going into the Christmas break. It’s get to get four points so far this weekend.”

Notes: The two teams are done playing each other at BMO. The two remaining games of the four-game season series are at Oklahoma City’s Cox Convention Center on Feb. 28 and March 1. … Rockford is 8-4-1-0 against the West Division. It only has seven more West matchups compared to 33 within its Midwest Division. … The Barons are 10-3-1-2 all-time against Rockford, including 7-1-0-1 at BMO. Rockford stands 6-9-1-0 against Oklahoma City. … ’Hogs defenseman Brett Skinner played in his 500th pro game Saturday. … The goalie matchup in Friday’s 4-3 ’Hogs win faced each other in the past two Western Hockey League finals. The Barons’ Laurent Brossolt won the Memorial Cup title in 2012 with the Edmonton Oil Kings; Rockford’s Carruth reigned in 2013 with the Portland Winterhawks. … The Barons have used a club-record seven goalies so far this season. The prior mark was four last season. … Saturday’s game capped a six-game road trip for Oklahoma City (1-3-0-2).